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Saturday, November 6, 2010

How did you know photography from the beginning, what makes you interested on it?

I got into photography by accident. Previously I was involved in professional sport including ice hockey and bike riding and at that time Poland was a communist country and I needed a stamp in my id document which I had to carry all the time that I am working. In the communist system you couldn’t work legally because it made that you were on the poverty line. I had pretty comfortable living but I needed this working stamp and with my physical appearance I got into modeling. Through modeling, I met a photographer who just started his career and we became friends. One day he asked me to go on a photo journalistic assignment, to protect him from potential danger and we got to the situation that putting it mildly, it was quite shocking and he was kind of paralyzed and I was screaming shoot and he couldn’t put the camera to his eye and I ripped the camera out of his hand and started, without any knowledge, pressing the button. Later on he said to me that I had to become a photographer. After a while I decided that I would have a go. We are talking about pure hardcore photojournalistic photography and my background; combining ice hockey and fighting to defend
myself through communism, it happened a kind of miracle that after taking my first photograph, three months on, I was working as a professional for a political and social magazine. Sort of the equivalent of Life magazine. I never had any formal training, I never assisted anybody. All my photographic knowledge I developed myself which leads to sometimes, very alternative ways of taking photographs. I escaped from communist Poland in 1979 and with no English and with no money, I tried all different ways to support myself. I have to say that the progression was extremely fast and after trying all different businesses, I decided to go back to photography. In Australia there didn’t exist photojournalism as such, that I decided to have a go at advertising commercial photography. Like before, I was finding my own way to keep on progressing and developing the skill as required and because my 27 year old life was full of extreme experiences, I can say, that maybe I have knowledge about life which was much more than the average person my age and I am talking about experience on all different levels. That I think answers how I become a photographer.